The present invention generally relates to a maintenance and/or management (maintenance/management) technique and an information processing technique. Particularly, the invention relates to a technique which can effectively and advantageously be applied for effectuating maintenance/management of a concerned machine such as information processing apparatus or the like from a remote site through the medium of an information network. More particularly, the present invention is concerned with a technique which can effectively and advantageously be applied to realization of maintenance/management function for a concerned machine, apparatus, device, equipment or the like through an information network typified by a SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol) network.
In the information processing system such as, for example, a disk array system, importance of maintenance/management work increases in accompanying with the trend of implementing the system on a large and larger scale with increasing complexity. Under the circumstances, maintenance/management of the system by manufacturer or other relevant party from a remote site is coming into general practice in addition to the maintenance/management performed by the user.
By way of example, the disk array system is equipped with a service processor (hereinafter also referred to as the SVP in short) which is constituted by a personal computer the like. On the other hand, the SVP is connected to an external information network such as the internet or the like with a view to realizing remote maintenance/management, e.g. issuance of various commands concerning maintenance/management of the system to the SVP and collection of the operation status information of the system by the maintenance/management control equipment through the information network.
In that case, general-purpose or generalized maintenance/management protocol such as SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol) can be adopted for the maintenance/management control equipment and the SVP.
As the related technology known heretofore, there may be mentioned one disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 326810/1997 entitled “Connection Changeover Method on Occurrence of Fault” (reference (1)). According to this technology, LAN adapters connected to hosts implemented in duplex as operating and standby ones, respectively, are assigned with same MAC address and IP address, respectively, wherein upon interchanging of the hosts for coping with a fault occurring in the operating host, the LAN adapter therefor is invalidated while that for the standby host is validated, to thereby realize the changeover of the host systems.
Further, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 59924/1994 entitled “Switching System for Duplex System” (reference (2)) discloses a system in which upon changeover of the hosts due to occurrence of a fault, the address (port number) of the host which is to take over the fault-suffering host is messaged to each of individual terminals.
Additionally, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 244526/2000 entitled “Multiplexed Network Connector System” (reference 3) discloses a technique for changing over by an internal switch the connections to duplexed network connector systems connected to a single host and assigned with a same MAC address.